Chapter Text
It had been a shit day for Martin.
And with that, a day that was worse than usual. Martin had never been the boy with the good luck, and sadly, when something good happened to him, he could expect everything to turn out badly.
But today had been the worst day of his year, Douglas was sure of that. He knew Martin well enough to look behind the more or less professional facial expressions while flying GERTI. Usually, flying a plane was the greatest thing on the planet that could happen to Martin Crieff, but today, even this was not enough to lighten his mood.
And Douglas had to admit, he felt a bit sorry for his Captain, not that he would ever admit it, of course.
But seeing Martin Crieff jump off a bridge was something he didn’t even expect after the worst day of the year. It certainly didn’t help either, that it was on the bridge he had to cross while driving Carolyn and Arthur home, his colleagues robbed off their car, who both reacted very much like Douglas when they saw their Captain jumping the balustrade, stepping on it mid-jump to catapult himself off it into the air. Time seemed to freeze for a moment when he could hear the faint noises of Carolyn yelling “Martin!” and Arthur shouting “Skip” at the same time and Martin was still in the air and there was still time and suddenly he was out of the car, ignoring the honks of the cars who cared more about Douglas’ Lexus blocking the street than the fact that a man had just jumped off the bridge.
Arthur’s and Carolyn’s footsteps followed him and then he was at the balustrade hanging over it looking down onto the cold dark water only seeing a few waves, evidences of a body being dropped into the river just now. But no trace of Martin whatsoever. Arthur almost hauled himself after the lanky pilot still calling out for him even though it was obvious, that even if Martin would be listening to them, hearing Arthur now was almost impossible. Water would clog his ears and suddenly Douglas thought of the embarrassing refresher course in Ipswich. Martin probably didn’t put in earplugs before he jumped into the ice cold water, which meant that the chance of him blacking out was dangerously high.
A few bubbles surfaced on the dirty water and Douglas started to run again, along the bridge towards the little flight of stairs on the waterside, almost flying them down towards the river bank. Maybe they could still get him out of the water. Jumping after him was no option, the water was freezing and too deep, but maybe they could pull the idiot out of it, smacking whatever kind of idea that made him do this out of his head.
Because really, it might be the worst day in the life of Martin Crieff, but there was no way it was that bad. Right?